Sol

so what's up with the daisys and aiders?

are the pins black diamond? are you willing to peice out any of the gear, rathar than a package deal?

Jimbo and I did the likely 2nd ascent of this climb last summer. see trip report here: Mt Hardy TR Its full-on, but not too bad. As you will see through the discussion on the TR its pretty hard to stay "on route." We ended up doing a direct variation which put us right below the 5.10 belayer slayer, flake pitch, seen in the photo in Nelson's book. We called it the Litterbox Direct 5.9+ R/X. It involved a gripping mantle using clumps of grass and piles of grain as handholds about 35 feet out from shitty pro. There is a fixed aluminium offset on this pitch that we left, the only fixed piece we saw on the climb. Beware, good luck. I broke about five handholds off trying to free the 5.10d pitch, i also did a bunch of gardening on that pitch as well, the FFA could be yours.

Post deleted by frosty_the_tradman

Post deleted by frosty_the_tradman

way to get it in full-conditions.

we descended the NW buttress this summer. not so bad, but i definetly don't recommend it unless you are an experienced mountaineer. best characterized as loose, tedious, exposed, circuitous downclimbing with a few raps here and there. it took us 2 hours from the summit to our basin camp on the n side. a bit hard to find the start if you've never been on the W ridge.

it's dry dudes, lets do this. its not even 10 yet.

index, squamish, wherever. lets go climb if its dry tomorrow. i lead mid 11's. c'mon hamsters, lets go send.

chris, can ya give me a bit more beta on the driving approach. i was up there earlier this year with my bro. we had a key, we unlocked the first gate, but after that, every road we took ended up being blocked by logging operations. maybe we were just unlucky, or maybe we missed something. anymore detailed beta appreciated, feel free to just hold my hand from the highway, thanks alot and nice send. , sol

i've heard they're good. i've seen a photo of hamish fraser on one of them in an old squamish guide, it looked sick.

Climb: SEWS-The Passenger IV 5.11c Date of Climb: 8/30/2006 Trip Report: Tyree and I climbed the Passenger route last Wednesday. We had an awesome time, and found the route to be steep, clean, well-engineered, and well-protected. The grades seemed a bit inflated. We thought the crux pitch felt a bit more like 11c, not 12a. And as far as length goes, we did the route in an easy 7 pitches, not the published 9. , Proabaly not a grade V, more like short grade IV. Either way, hats off to Bryan Burdo and crew, it is a fine route on some of the best stone i've touched at the pass. The red Fred description of this route is a bit ambiguous. For those who want a bit more beta, here it is. The route starts towards the bottom of the south face on the left side of the lowest buttress. Scramble left on a ledge system for about 30 ft to a tree and a set of twin cracks. P1: Climb up the twin cracks to a roof, undercling left. More crack, then face, leads to a bolted belay. 2 bolts. 5.10d, 165 ft. Quality climbing on P1: P2: Climb fingercrack to roof/bulge. Crank through bulge and continue up via steep corners. Belay beneath large roof at fixed pin. 1 bolt. 5.11b, 60ft. Below the bulge: Roof, Roof: P3: Good moves crank throught the first roof. Continue up steepening thin crack to second roof. Awesome moves through second roof lead to a bolted belay. 5.11a, 70ft. Loving it: Get some Ty: P4: Move left via difficult slab traverse. Continue up to bulge, crank through bulge and traverse right to wild finish. 8 bolts. 5.11c, 70ft. P5: Chimney up right side of largest roof. Pull over roof into good handcrack. Belay at grassy stance. 2 fixed pins. 5.10c, 180ft. P6: Climb mildy dirty, left-hand crack, without getting spit out into the abyss. At bulge below roof, traverse left on face to tree clump and belay. 5.10d, 90 ft. P7:Continue trversing left to good crack, follow up to loose top out. 5.7+, 60ft. Ty and his Doo-Doo Space Pistol: The route is classic, if your up for the grade, go get it. 1 to 2 sets of cams to 3 inches, nuts.

One thing you have to remember about grades is that there totally made up. It depends on your experience on the route which can vary drastically from party to party. A friend and i climbed the complete N Ridge of Stuart this year in 7:45, base of route to summit. I'd give it a IV+. Though we descended the somewhat tedious NW buttress to get down, and it took a few hours, it really had nothing to do with the route on the NR and should not get equated into its grade. The late Guy Edwards climbed the complete NR in oct 2001 car to car in 6:47. Wonder what kinds grade he would have given it?

Thanks for the beta Matt, i'll have to give it a whirl.

That's funny. I tried the "geo-nerd" scheme as well.

anybody got more beta on this route? seems like a pretty reasonable grade as far as a free line up the east face of lib bell is concerned. any beta appreciated, thanks. sol

a little 5.7+ on the salathe wall, el cap: the infamous "ear" pitch, the 5.10 on that route was so much easier than the 5.7.

i stumbled upon a rap-bolted line on SEWS a few weeks ago. quite over-bolted, much like condorphamine addiction route. i imagine it was put up by the same person. i'll let the bolt-choppers know where it is,just as soon as i climb it.

i've been holding off blasting kloke's book online for a while: HOLY CRAP WHAT A WASTE OF PAPER. ahhh, now i feel a little better. 12 ft 5.3 topropes, and no index. pretty much kloke has united with a power drill with a plan to rap-bolt every square centimeter of rock out there. i've seen the man in action, he just starts rapping and drilling; no tr'ing of the moves, no figuring out the stances for clipping, just rap and bolt. in my opinion his rampant piss-poor bolting is just as bad as chipping.

just do the standard approach, its not bad at all.

what no 3rd ascent this summer? c'mon choss dogs. just kidding, its a pretty serious route. i finally figured out how to post pics from my gallery. here's a few from last summer's climb. now that a big ass face: jimbo on the first attempt of the Litter Box Direct var. 5.9+X: the 5.10 belayer slayer pitch: trying to get rid of that dirty feeling the next morning:

if you climb 5.10, don't waste your time on the beckey route, or the southwest rib. go climb something good like the Boving route on the NW face of SEWS: or the rebel yell route on the east face of chianti spire: I also recommend Clean Break on Juno Tower, w face of NEWS, and at the bottom of the list the NW corner of NEWS. pm if you want any beta. i reread your post and these routes might be a bit too much for your first time. but maybe these pics will inspire your second round at the pass. Note: wa pass is super soft, the 5.11 on the w face of NEWS goes at about 5.10c, and the 5.11 on the boving route is more like 5.10d.

i picked up a few in june from the moutain shop. kinda crazy, but there all kinds of different lengths, even the same size. hmmm?!?!?!?!?!

nice to meet you too tom, how's your 100 highest bid going? blake: no we did not find a single trace of Nelson's bolts? where the f#$% are they?

John: yep, walked (stemmed, leaped) right over the ol' cannonhole, exciting. we belayed near the top of that last gendarme right before one would make a descending traverse to the last notch. i hate to break it to ya guys but we cleaned a bit of tat off that last gendarme, it would have been easily missed from a low traverse. proabaly not the 1st ascent. its so damn obvious i imagine the ridge was climbed years ago. Blake: we went to the blizzard/gunsight col and just started climbing up the crest: CANNONHOLE RIDGE COMPLETE. About the W face. on p2, when the cracks seamed out did ya just move left via unprotected face to the cracks near the arete? how was the face climbing? Ya know i printed out your trip report but forgot to bring it with us. too bad, cuz it proabaly would have helped. we started the first pitch directly above y'alls cairn right up the corner. whoops. stout 9+, with nests of tcu, hybrid aliens, and brass nuts. basically i stemmed carefully for about 20 ft to my last high piece, then i ekked my way up and right on hollow dirty flakes for 20 more ft before it ramped up to good pro and good, though hollow, hand cracks to the belay 5.9+ R/X. after looking at y'alls TR I realize that Blake started just right of the corner, that seems a bit more reasonable. it was proably the sketchy start combined with the surprisingly dirty, seamy, and gritty rock that prompted our retreat. stoked to train harder and head back there next summer, we're figuring about 11c/d to free over the roof. it'll be sick.